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My Day Two at #CSTA2022
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

My Day Two at #CSTA2022

Day two started off great as I connected with several people from my home CSTA Chapter –CSTA New Hampshire. The CS community in New Hampshire is growing and the...

Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft at #CSTA2022
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft at #CSTA2022

I blog about what interests me or stirs my curiosity. One thing that fits that is what are the really big tech companies doing to support CS education. So I amAmazon...

Day One #CSTA2022
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Day One #CSTA2022

Well it was day one for me. I know that some people got in yesterday or earlier either because they were taking a workshop today or were part of the Chapter Leadership...

Dice, Simulations, and Math
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Dice, Simulations, and Math

My friend Andrew Parsons send me this link to an interesting video The unexpected logic behind rolling multiple dice and picking the highest. Now I love simulating...

Getting Ready for #CSTA2022
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Getting Ready for #CSTA2022

The CSTA Annua Conference is only days away. I’m pretty excited about it. It’s my first plane ride since CSTA in Phoenix in 2019. That’s a long time for me. OrJacdac...

Teaching Computer Science–Moving atoms not pixels
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Teaching Computer Science–Moving atoms not pixels

On my first visit to the Lifelong Kindergarten Group and the MIT Media Lab, I notices a message on the windows. “Some people would rather move atoms than pixels...

Welcome New Computer Science Teachers
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Welcome New Computer Science Teachers

Spring is an interesting time on social media. I help moderate a couple of CS teacher groups on Facebook and let me tell you, membership is booming! Why? Well,Computer...

BINGO Inspired Projects
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

BINGO Inspired Projects

My son’s school, he’s principal of an elementary school, had a Bingo themed fundraiser yesterday. I can’t help but think about how things are done with any event...

Teach CS in K-12? Please Help Gather Data
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Teach CS in K-12? Please Help Gather Data

The Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and the Kapor Center are conducting a survey of K-12 computer science teachers in the United States. The CS education...

Last Mile Education Fund–Making a Big Difference
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Last Mile Education Fund–Making a Big Difference

We often underestimate the difference that small things can make. When I was in high school all I could afford was a cheap plastic slide rule (no calculators back...

Word Games and Cryptography
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Word Games and Cryptography

My latest discovery, thanks to Doug Peterson, is Crazy Phrase. Crazy Phrase is something of a variation of Wordle except that in Crazy Phrase the player is a phrase...

APCS A–Java or Python?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

APCS A–Java or Python?

There is a lot of discussion about moving the Advanced Placement CS A exam to Python from Java. The Collegeboard is reluctant to do so. They see APCSA as the equivalent...

What Should APCS A Really Be About?
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What Should APCS A Really Be About?

Perhaps my favorite panel of SIGCSE 2022 was debating the question of should the APCS A course switch its language from Java to Python? During the discussion it...

Final Thoughts on SIGCSE 2022
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Final Thoughts on SIGCSE 2022

I had a great time at SIGCSE 2022. As an introvert I probably suffered less from not being with people than many but after two years I really needed to be withLast...

SIGCSE 2022 Day 3
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

SIGCSE 2022 Day 3

Saturday at SIGCSE was a short day but there was still plenty to learn. Shaundra Daily. Her talk, based on her own history, was about how their are barriers making...

SIGCSE 2022 Day 2
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

SIGCSE 2022 Day 2

The morning keynote was by Barbara Ericson. She talked about a lot of her early work including some of her online books CSAwesome and her work with the free online...

SIGCSE 2022 Day 1
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

SIGCSE 2022 Day 1

SIGCSE 2022 is my first in-person conference in over 2.5 years. It’s my first SIGCSE in a lot longer than that. It looks to be a great conference . There are 1518...

Fun With Rounding Errors
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Fun With Rounding Errors

I love xkcd cartoons. I came across this one thing morning that shows the benefits(?) or rounding up. My immediate idea was “what a great programming project!” ...

Troubles with Error Messages
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

Troubles with Error Messages

Error messages, in theory, are there to help programmers. Of course there are problems with then in practice. With students, the biggest problem is that  they don...

What Do Computer Science Teachers Need For Professional Development
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson

What Do Computer Science Teachers Need For Professional Development

Mike Zamansky had a great post called Trends In Professional Development in CS - it's not all good. We’re still at a very interesting place in the development of...
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